


Wine and Tension

by ElGato



Series: Our Complicated Life [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Wonder Woman (Comics), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Comic Canon, DC Comics Rebirth, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 04:51:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11246673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElGato/pseuds/ElGato
Summary: While balancing life and intense missions, Diana and Steve manage to find time to have a real dinner date.





	Wine and Tension

**Author's Note:**

> This closely references the Steve Trevor Wonder Woman one shot by author Tim Seeley. A fun read that I'd like to expand upon.

For Steve Trevor, being in a solid relationship with Diana of Themyscira, aka Wonder Woman, was something that caused him great happiness, as well as great anxiety. No matter how much he tried to reformat his perception he kept reminding himself that she was incredible in every way. He...wasn’t. At least in the larger scheme of things.

 

He tried to keep in mind that they were fond friends first, and their relationship was the result of slowly developing feelings. Still, he was raised to believe that hard work begets great things. He had to earn his money, his rank, his opportunities, his benefits. 

 

Landing on Themyscira was happenstance. Call it fate, a freak accident, or a cosmic joke, there was nothing he could’ve done to prevent it or bring it upon him.

 

The only thing he fought and worked hard for was for his own life. Even then, he would not have been able to do it without the mercy of the Amazons. The first time Diana held him in her arms was only granted because he was crying over his dead unit mates. And his best friend. He was the only survivor of that crash. Everyone else perished immediately. Their suffering minimal to none.

 

Years later, both falling in and out of each other’s lives over the years, had culminated in the willingness to at least try to let their feelings for each other develop in the realm of a legitimate relationship. Quickly they had to realize they had to trust each other, which wasn’t hard, but it was and had to be firmly cemented if they were to ever make it work. Diana had her secrets, and he certainly had his. They both had to respect that.

 

They took it slow and it was still relatively new. They’ve had a few nice dinners, a few galas and parties, a few walks around the Washington Monument pool. Each meeting things were apparent that they were moving along. They both became comfortable with kisses and gentle touches, then came the sexual tension.

 

Steve was possibly the last person to notice it. Diana noticed. She knew by the way he looked at her and smiled at her. The way they worked together. The way they talked to each other. Others on the outside noticed too. Diana herself has been given ‘the eye’ by a few of the League members whenever they witness her interaction with Steve.

 

When the Justice League members try hard to pretend that they don’t want to pry into your love life, you know you’ve got something special.

 

Steve, for his part, was already too enthralled by her to notice the tension. 

 

That was until she fondly reminded of that fact when she rescued him from the Crimson Centipedes and a group of comically misogynistic terrorists.

 

“I hope this doesn’t stall our evening plans,” she said in that casual tone as she bound the terrorists. “I assume dinner and wine, followed by flirting, soft touches, and sexual tension.”

 

At his glance, she chuckled to herself, “I’m being honest, Steve.”

 

Before he had time to respond to her words he received a message from a special unit asking for his assistance. Alone. Top secret. He frowned and apologized to Diana that he would have to postpone the plans.

 

And he told as much of the truth as he could. He told her he had to go away for three days.

 

“Are you able to tell me where?” she asked in a warning tone.

 

“Only if you use that,” Steve replied, pointing to her lasso.

 

As always, she didn’t rebuke. She looked slightly disappointed but understanding as she kissed his forehead, wishing him well.

 

He pulled his mission off. Not exactly without a hitch, but it was successful. As soon as he returned he contacted Diana about making up for their abandoned dinner plans. She agreed.

 

They dined at a fine Mediterranean restaurant in the center of Washington D.C. Steve dressed in a crisp white button-up shirt and black slacks and shoes; Diana in a midnight dress, and--dear god--she gathered her bangs loosely back with a red band.

 

She reached across and caressed the top of his hand and said, “Yes, this is more like it.”

 

Steve smiled broadly, “I know better than to disappoint you, Diana.”

 

There was dinner. There was wine. And there was tension. 

 

Later, Steve walked her back to her safe house. Not that she needed someone to walk her anywhere, but they wanted to continue to talk while strolling along the streets of D.C.

 

He followed her up to her room, expecting her to turn around and wish him goodnight. Soon they were at her door. When she unlocked it and opened the door, Steve held back, waiting as Diana strode in and placed her clutch on the sofa. He then followed her in, leaving the door open.

 

Steve had been having a great time since they sat down for dinner. He didn’t want the night to end. The question was if she felt the same.

 

Diana tossed a few midnight curls of her hair back as she jerked her head to stare at him. Her gaze was purposeful, evident in what she was telling him.

 

Jaw clenching as he swallowed the dryness of his throat, he reached back and closed the door to the flat behind him. He remained silent but took a few steps towards Diana. She did the same and met him in the middle, hands immediately reaching up to cup his face, pulling him to meet her lips.

 

Her kiss was intent, deep, and Steve had no choice but to be pulled in, giving in to the sensations. All too quickly, she broke away, and a sound of protest hung into his throat until she kissed him again. And again. Each kiss loosening him for her. He was mildly aware of Diana’s hands running gently through to short shaved hairs at the back of his scalp.

 

Finally, Diana tilted her head, sucking softly on his bottom lip, then plunging her tongue between his lips, exploring deeper, body pressing more insistently against his.

 

Steve couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by her power and control. A shudder ran through his spine as he realized that she was inviting him in for more than a few flirtatious casual kisses. He was so caught up in the sensations that he failed to notice when she drew slightly away.

 

“You’re trembling,” she noted, her voice barely above a whisper. “Is something wrong?”

 

With a jerk of the head, Steve seemed to snap out of a reverie, looking confused and a bit uncertain. “No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just like---”

 

He struggled to come up with words.

 

“---like our first time.”

 

Her hands dropped from the back of his head to his shoulders. “It is not our first time though. Surely you can’t forget after Bwanda--”

 

“Yes, I know, and I do count that, but this our first time since being….official. It’s just different.”

 

“That matters to you?” she said in that half-amused, half-confused tone of hers when she didn’t understand a Man’s World custom. That particular tone of voice was more of a remnant of her first years here. Now that tone was almost exclusively used with Steve.

 

Because though Man’s World customs confused her at times, much of Steve Trevor would seem odd to both his world and hers. Steve in his own world never exactly fit in. It would make sense given his position in the military and government. Except he’s always been that way. As a kid, he wasn’t odd enough to be bullied or picked on often, but it was the subtle things. His broad imagination. His gentle disposition towards most people. His tendency to take the weirdest and oddest situations in stride. His ability to be great with kids, despite having none of his own, nor seemingly ever in a position to have any of his own. His near lack of awareness to his masculinity and the distinction that he never really regarded the concepts of masculinity and femininity as being opposites of each other. These and many other subtle details were just off enough that people could take note.

 

And Diana took note. It was hard not to. He was the first man she’d met, so meeting other men---and women-- in his world, she drew comparisons. This wasn’t to say that the other men and women in this world were lesser than the man she had in her arms. In fact, despite a rocky introduction, the first few men and women she came in contact with outside of Steve were quite amicable and tried to be as understanding as possible. He, however, never exactly blended in with the society he was born in. But he wasn’t outstanding enough to make any clear distinctions between himself and others.

 

In a lot of ways, Diana noted, he was like a ghost. And Diana, thinking back to her days on Themyscira, she was much that way as well. From birth, she never quite fit in, or understood her society’s way of thinking in regards to the outside world. The things that made her different from the rest--the fact that she was a Princess among other things-- had nothing to do with how she was, or how she viewed the world. But her differences in those categories still made her just a bit outside of Amazonian convention.

 

The look he gave back at her was passively serious. She had to give him points for being so convicted in his beliefs in this regard.

 

“I see,” she said with a weak smile.

 

She kissed him fully again and once she felt his arms wrap once more around her back she began to unbutton his shirt. They broke apart only briefly so that Steve can drop his shirt fully on the floor. Like magnets they came together immediately after the shirt touched the floor, Diana’s hands running over the hairs on his chest, as he gently pulled her body flush against his, giving a deep kiss. He felt the pressure of her breasts against his chest, the straps of the dress she wore falling over her shoulders.

 

Diana pulled him to her bedroom, blood roaring in his ears and in other places. They tumbled onto the comforter, still keeping each other close, giving experimental movements against each other's bodies. When Steve felt her strong leg run along the side of his suggestively, something occurred to him and he pulled away.

 

“Wait, wait. I don’t have a condom,” he whispered, a bit mortified at the realization that he came utterly unprepared. In his defense, he believed that walking around with condoms ready while casually dating someone was a big presumption of the expectations of sex. He didn’t want to come off that he was expecting it. He wasn’t, but he could see in situations, like now, being prepared may trump presumption.

 

She kissed and nipped his neck, and he seemed to not to want to have any of that until she responded with some suggestion. Diana couldn’t resist a playful smirk in his shoulder.

 

“Surely, you wouldn’t mind becoming a father,” she said, almost laughing at herself before the words came out.

 

As expected, Steve wrests himself out of her grasp, and bolted upright, staring down at her with a look of confusion and horror.

 

She laughed. “Don’t worry about it,” she replied almost dismissively. Her hand wound behind her to her nightstand and into the drawer. She pulled out a box and tossed them at Steve. “Hope I got the right size.”

 

Confusion remained on his face. This time apparent by the way his dark eyebrows drew together as glanced down at the box of condoms and them up and at her.

 

There, she looked up him was a teasing smile, “What?”

 

“You just have random boxes of condoms around for emergencies?”

 

“I bought them for the first time a few months ago when we were ‘official’--as you put it. It’s called being prepared, Steven.”

 

Steve was both incredibly touched and embarrassed. She was prepared to be intimate and share a bed with him from the get-go. Why was he too stunted to be that way too?

 

“This is a disaster on my part,” he apologized. “I come unprepared and now I---”

 

Steve glanced down, where the physical evidence of his desire was killed the moment Diana uttered the phrase “becoming a father”.

 

And Diana was unable to resist teasing again, “What’s the matter, Steve? Did the idea of having babies with me turn you off?”

 

“Enough, Diana!” he cried out, his face turning red with embarrassment. “Why do you have to tease me?”

 

She sat up with a joyful smile and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips, “Because you make it so easy and entertaining.”

 

Her humor slowly melted into real want as she gave him another kiss, this one more purposeful, her hands roaming on his shoulders, up his neck, fingers teasing the shorter hairs at the back of his head. She backed away, and stared into his eyes, giving him a pointed look.

 

He let out a soft breath and leaned and in kissed her back. She pulled him back on the bed, noting how his hand lingered at the fallen strap of her dress on her arm.

 

“You can undress me,” she permitted.

 

Mild shock crossed his face, amazed that she managed to read his mind. He leaned over her, nuzzling the juncture of her neck, bristles of his goatee prickling her skin, slowly pulling down her dress from her body…

 

Several long and blissful moments later, both were content in each other's arms, lounging in their afterglow.

 

“You never told me if you wanted to share what delayed  _ this _ , Steve,” she said gently, her hand pushing back his now damp blond bangs on his forehead. Before he vocalized his response, he rubbed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

 

His blue eyes stared into hers and she could tell his mission prior to his dinner was still a bit of a sore spot. He had yet to tell her what happened.

 

“Can you really not tell me what happened?” she asked, serious and understanding this time.

 

“I--” like at dinner, he paused again. He could trust her with this. It was just he didn’t want her to know what the parallels made him feel.

 

He explained, thumb absentmindedly brushing across her shoulder as he held her when he told the story of the city of lost ageless children, and how their presence led Eviless and her Saturn-ites to a peaceful place. Eviless and her minions were dismantled and the peaceful hidden utopia restored.

 

He left his feelings unsaid on purpose, but as he predicted, it was apparent that Diana could fill in those blanks. Her emotional intelligence was one of her strong points, and although she would never understand man’s tendency to keep things in from even loved ones, she could see right through him and his evasive explanation.

 

“The children are safe yes?” she asked. He nodded, but the deep inhale gave her the impression that he wasn’t exactly satisfied with their safety. He was, quite plainly, still worried. Still wondering what contact with an ancient paradise would do to its inhabitants. 

 

“You helped them,” she said, knowing and sensing his guilt. “You saved them and left them back to their lives. I am sure they are grateful.”

 

“I’m sure,” he said, reminded that the children had offered him a drink from the water that gave them their eternal youth--an offer he, and another of his team declined.

 

Diana had long given up trying to lift whatever guilt Steve had over the past that turned right back up with this incident. She cannot change how a man’s heart interprets his own actions--fault or not. Instead, she tried to help by being understanding, by being supportive, just as he was to her when she came to this world.  She hoped, eventually he would relinquish his guilt as something he had no responsibility for. But, she figured, so long as he was in the military, going on co-op missions, watching the horrors people did to each other, that guilt would never go away. And when peaceful hidden utopias are discovered and dragged into the meanness of his world, he can't help but be chained to the responsibility that he unintentionally exposed them to awfulness, sadness, and despair.

 

Diana nuzzled his neck, and whispered, unable to stop herself, “I know you try your best Steve. And normally that’s more than enough.”

 

He was doubtful, but her gentle a caresses and afterglow had caused his thoughts to not eat him up as much as they normally would when he was alone. A smile graced his lips, glad and thankful that he was with someone he could look up to, but will also understand his own shortcomings. Who had high expectations of him because she believed in him and his capabilities.

 

Steve kissed her brow, firm and loving to portray his gratitude that she was here with him. “Thank you, Angel. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

 

Quiet minutes later, he fell asleep with his angel keeping watch over him.


End file.
